


Meltwater By The Cupful

by morphogenesis



Category: Norn9
Genre: Background Senri/Koharu, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Kid Fic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 20:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16562726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis
Summary: Hydrangeas and the rainy season are intertwined; Akito and Nanami are the same.Twenty-five five sentence fics depicting Akito and Nanami’s life post-canon.





	Meltwater By The Cupful

**Author's Note:**

> Done for Table Three from the 5sentence-fics LJ community. Emeto warning in #20. This is semi-compliant with the Akito story in Last Era bc I nabbed details from it but overall cohesion is loose. 
> 
> With love to Elizabeth, whose own 5sentence-fics fill inspired me years and years ago.

**I. Nanami**

 

**01\. Flip side:**  
One day Nanami’s curiosity wins out and she asks, “Aren’t you going to call yourself ‘Ichinose Akito’ now?” 

Akito rubs the back of his neck and mumbles something about bad luck; in a role reversal she stands on her tiptoes so she can gently bump him on the head with her fist. “You want to be a Shiranui instead,” she jokes, but when Akito bursts out “Of course not—wait, that’s not...damn it...” she grabs his arm and presses herself against his side. “Me either,” she says quietly.

When Akito cups the back of her head she feels his mother’s wedding ring against her scalp—a reminder that he can fix that.

 

**02\. Red tape:**  
Nanami still acts like there are so many things she’s not “allowed” to do, to the point where when presented with two options her usual choice is neither. Sometimes she hesitates on tasks it would take others a second to figure out, even if she’s done them before. Since Father let her go, she’s learned there’s a treasury of choices, methods, and reasons never before available; she feels like a bird gazing out the open door of her cage with wonder and fear.

“Cut that out,” Akito says when she mutters that she’s not very good at cleaning so it’s better if he helps her. “I don’t know how to throw a kunai, but do you see me complaining?” 

 

**03\. Shot down:**  
“It’s easier if you don’t overthink it,” Nanami tells Akito when they’re outside and he’s ground his feet into the earth, refusing to stop until he hits the broad tree several yards away from them.

“You do it then!” He’s not amused when she takes the kunai from his stubborn fist and with a whip of her non-dominant arm hits the tree trunk dead center. “You grew up doing this; it’s not a fair fight.”

Impulsively, Nanami kisses the corner of his mouth to show there’s no reason to fight anymore. 

 

**04\. Calling me home:**  
Nanami sits awake watching a shaft of moonlight crawl from one side of the floor to the other; it’s a thin sliver on the far side of the room by the time she’s mustered enough courage.

Akito is still an early and heavy sleeper; it takes a few firm shakes before he stirs, but he’s fully awake when she takes one of his blanket-warmed hands, pulls it under her clothes, and presses it between her breasts where her heart is pounding in strong rising pulses. “I want to,” she whispers. “Unless you want me to go.”

In one clumsy but strong motion he sits up and sweeps her into the futon with him, holding her down with his hand on her chest and says in a raspy voice, “Stay.” 

 

**05\. Hands are tied:**  
A minute ago Akito peeled her clothes off like the skin of an apple, mouthing and biting her neck and shoulder like he was trying to get to her core, but now that they’re both naked he squirms when he brushes against her thigh.

“You’re heavy,” Nanami says, and he hesitantly shifts his weight so he’s supporting himself on his elbows above her.

“You’re too small,” he teases, but his kiss is clumsy and his voice shy when he breathes, “so hold my hand, alright?”

She has to lie with her legs open and knees up so they can fit together, but she’s comforted when she squeezes his hand. She thought sex would be instinctive and easy but it’s difficult to breathe and move with someone else on top of her; when he hides his face in her neck and asks what she’s laughing about, her bashful giggle and stroking his hair makes him laugh too.

 

**06\. Call of the wild:**  
Akito only needs to propose once, but must ask Nanami seven times to set an official wedding date. In the meantime he works hard, cooks and cleans at home, and comments that the house is too bare without little shoes mixed among the adult ones.

“Women are supposed to yearn for domesticity,” Nanami says, and he turns away from the sink even though the water’s running; he grabs her and dips her so low she feels like they’re going to fall.

“You know how much of a man I am,” he says with self-satisfaction that can’t go unmocked.

“Yuiga called you ‘the lady of the house’ once,” she intones, and then he sputters and does drop her; he swears and apologizes in the same breath as he rubs the bump on the back of her head.

 

**07\. Walking on the sun:**  
Nanami loves him but when he talks about having children her mouth fills with salt until it’s parched to the jawbone. Growing up she learned that a parent teaches—no, demands their child not seek affection, never make eye contact with an adult, and unquestionably follow their parents’ orders. _If they don’t_ —she clutches her throat and doesn’t finish the thought.

One day while shopping they see a little boy wailing at his mother in front of a sweets shop; Akito nods to them and says, “Our kids aren’t gonna act like that.”

Nanami can’t swallow and can’t speak when he asks why she looks sick.

 

**08\. No retreat:**  
“You’re so pretty,” Koharu exclaims as she longingly rubs the silken hem of Nanami’s wedding dress between her fingers.

“Stand up straight and take small steps like a lady,” Mikoto says, but her eyes are smiling as she holds Nanami’s shoulders and guides her like she always does.

“Shh, we ‘borrowed’ these from the garden outside,” Itsuki says, winking as he and then Heishi each slide a purple flower into her bouquet.

“Don’t look at me like that, I-I’m not gonna mess up and lose my brother’s wedding ring at the last second,” Senri mutters, and then takes her elbow like Koharu begged him to so Nanami wouldn’t walk down the aisle alone.

_I do,_ Nanami practices in her head over and over again as the aisle seems to narrow with every step; when the time comes she only whispers it but Akito wraps his arms around her neck and kisses her because he’s the only one who needs to hear.

 

**09\. Stitch in time:**  
Nanami wishes she’d taken the storm clouds seriously, because now they huddle together under Akito’s jacket while rain falls sideways and soaks them to the skin. They make their way slowly down the beach, trying to keep his jacket from blowing out of their grip or hitting them, and Nanami can’t blink rainwater out of her eyes fast enough or keep her hair from sticking to her face.

By the time they make it back to the hotel, her shins are crusted with sand and his clothes are sodden and dripping on the floor. He creases his brow and turns his head away when she goes to push his hair away from his face—“Your hands are dirty.”

“I told you we should wait to take a honeymoon.”

 

**10\. Take the fall:**  
At first Nanami wanted all the blame for the past; she wanted the burden of Akito’s guilt and her own so one of them could be happy. She didn’t understand why, when she nearly fell from the Norn, he grabbed her hand when the moment before he declared he wanted nothing to do with her.

Now as the rain pours outside, they’re freshly washed, lying in the hotel bed, and quiet until he asks, “How do you like being ‘Ichinose Nanami?’”

Nanami pulls herself further up his chest, settles below his chin, and says, “I think the Ichinose name was your burden for a long, long time, but now I’ll carry it with you.” This time, she takes Akito’s hand and when he kisses the top of her head she feels his trust and relief. 

 

 

**II. Akito**

 

**11\. Lonely at the top:**  
The only time Akito envies their friends who still have their powers is when he remembers everything dangerous happening in the world, and that if he had his (and Senri’s) power he could do more than write encouraging letters to those still fighting or optimistically spar with Nanami.

“You would’ve died y’know,” Senri says, helpful as ever, when they’re talking after dinner and he’s forced to wash the dishes while Akito puts away the leftovers. “I can’t think of anything worth dying for.”

“Koharu won’t be happy to hear that.”

Senri drops a dish, stammering that that’s not what he meant and his big brother is a jerk; Akito chuckles, puts Senri in a headlock, and thinks that they have something the remaining espers should envy.

 

**12\. The big blue:**  
Akito dreams about drowning in the sea, the river, the lake, the spring on the Norn— everything that would swallow him whole and flood his chest and organs while he struggles to contain a power that was never his. He wakes up with a raw throat, dying for freshwater, and gulps mouthfuls out of his hand at the kitchen sink.

When he comes back to bed Nanami is asleep and he looks at her form in the dark, pulls the covers down so she won’t get too hot. He knows she would drown for him.

Watching her sleep, he swears he’ll be the kind of man who keeps them afloat.

 

**13\. Deep water:**  
Nanami and Senri grow closer; Akito fears nothing good will come of this.

On the other side of the door Senri sighs before saying, "Well...he is my brother, but if he made you that angry I could think of a mild curse for him."

"That might be too much, what if we just..." 

Akito presses his ear to the door and gets more and more irate at both of them until Nanami asks Senri if he's sure about this and Senri says, "Without your help I wouldn't have a brother to hex."

When they emerge they find Akito sitting on the floor, rubbing his watering eyes; Nanami crouches and wipes his cheek and Senri leans over and pats his shoulder.

 

**14\. Riding the rail:**  
All Akito remembers is feeling ill at work, and the next thing he knows he’s shivering, burning, and curled up somewhere soft. When he opens his eyes he realizes he’s home, resting his head on Nanami’s lap and hugging her waist.

“Akito,” Nanami says apologetically, “I have to go to work soon but I’ll come home as soon as I can.” She massages his scalp and her fingers are rivulets of cool water on his skin. She always takes care of him, he thinks, from bringing him a horse when his village wanted to kill him to the bowl of rice porridge by their bedside; she must know what he means when he murmurs, “I’m glad I met this you.”

 

**15\. In good standing:**  
“Keep up,” Nanami calls as she bounces on the balls of her feet; she’s so far ahead of him on the trail she’s about to disappear around the bend.

This is unfair; Akito could outrun her if he wasn’t burdened with all of their gear so he yells, “I’m carrying everything!” 

When they reach a cliff not far from where they’re going to camp for the night, he sets the pack down with a groan and in a moment she grabs his arm and pulls him to the edge. The land below them is endless green, and she points to the trailhead where they started and says, “Look how far we’ve come,” so earnestly that he grabs her waist and lifts her higher so she can see farther and farther ahead. 

 

**16\. Evergreen:**  
Nanami is a dedicated apothecary; before long her job takes over their house. She claims an entire cabinet to store tinctures and dried ingredients, tends an ever-spreading garden, and on the windowsill stores pots overflowing with the nauseating herbs she constantly hid in her cooking on the Norn. 

The last straw is when Akito grabs a jar in the kitchen and realizes at the last second he was about to put a medicinal poison in tonight’s dinner. “Will you let me have one room to myself!?”

Nanami, cute even with dirt on her pale hands and face, looks up from repotting gardenias, reaches for the jar he’s holding, and says, “The whole house is yours.”

 

**17\. Keeping in touch:**  
Hydrangeas and the rainy season are intertwined; when the latter arrives, Akito holds his breath for the former. He doesn’t care that it’s unmanly to admit this, because he loves the big round clustered flowers, their light fragrance, and soft color palette.

One day after working late, Nanami returns with a handful of them; they’re blooming pale blue and rich purple and water trickles down their stems.

“Why bring home more of these?” he asks although he reaches for them, holds them up to his nose, and in the next motion reaches out to stroke her hair which is just as fluffy and puffed up as the flowers.

She doesn’t answer except with that little fragile smile she wears when she doesn’t know how to say what she’s thinking. 

 

**18\. Absence of fear:**  
As Koharu helps Akito make kuzumochi, she says something surprising: “Thank you for making Nanami so happy.”

“Of course I would,” Akito says, but he looks out the window anyway as if he’s missing the moment Nanami lets down her mask of affected contentment. Outside, Senri looks annoyed as he was conscripted to help her in the garden, but Nanami’s mouth is set with focus and her hands are sure as she weeds and prunes.

“Just...please promise you’ll always take care of her,” Koharu says and her normally guileless eyes and smile are guarded; she looked just like this last night after she and Nanami had a long talk in the guest room.

Akito frowns at the thick kuzumochi mixture like it can reveal what Koharu isn’t telling him.

 

**19\. On the radio:**  
Suzuhara couldn’t make it to their wedding but he sent them a fine radio as a present (“To follow the news and learn something new every day,” he wrote). Akito uses it to listen to music when he’s cooking or cleaning house, but one day he catches the words “bombing” and “train” and freezes in place before cranking the volume dial all the way up. He sits before the speakers and follows the chaos of the day, then the past month.

He turns the radio off and looks around the room, wondering how many people on that train were looking forward to returning to homes just like this. When Nanami returns he squeezes her in a hug that lifts her off her feet, and then he sits down to write letters to his brother and all their friends.

 

**20\. Stretching the truth:**  
Nanami says she's fine even though she's falling asleep at the weirdest times, curled up in a ball like she's trying to hide from the world, and says it hurts too much for him to hold her. He chalks it up to exhaustion from working so hard, but one evening she doesn't want to eat, head in her hands at the table and saying everything makes her nauseous. 

When he pushes her to eat _something_ she covers her mouth, bile spurts out between her fingers, and then she throws up in his lap. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she keeps repeating, but for what he isn't sure—for puking, for being pregnant, or for hiding it. He wants to say that’s ridiculous but her eyes are streaming and her hands are trembling over her mouth now, so after they clean up he pulls her against him and says it’ll be fine like a good husband (even though he wants to puke too).

 

 

**III. Both**

 

**21\. A matter of luck:**  
The nausea goes away before the fear. Nanami’s done the math; her child’s going to be born in the dead of winter and she wants to be excited but all she can think about is snow.

One morning she wakes up late with the house empty and the floor cool to the touch from autumn. It takes some effort now, but she takes her kunai from the under-floor storage, heads outside, and hits her target half of the time.

_I can protect you,_ she thinks to her baby, _I will_.

 

**22\. Major renovation:**  
The snow falls early and hard this year and by the time Koharu arrives in anticipation of the baby she’s pushing through a thick layer to get to their front door. She waves at Nanami, careful not to touch her with cold hands; when Koharu throws her arms around Akito’s neck she chokes him and scatters ice crystals down his neck.

Koharu is a welcome guest; she bakes them cookies like he taught her to a long time ago, and when Nanami’s in labor Koharu wakes him up by throwing his jacket and boots over him while he’s still asleep. The boots are his old ones with peeling soles; while running to the midwife the heel splits, slush floods his shoe, and, cursing, he skids and almost falls on his face.

He looks up at the moon, a sliver that still shines on the snow and lights the rest of the way; there’s a long way to go and his foot is about to freeze off at the ankle but he pushes his hair out of his face and keeps running because forget the shoes, snow, and freeze—he’s about to have a kid.

 

**23\. Exit the dragon:**  
Nanami has heard all manner of painful, disgusting, immoral, and humiliating experiences that people want to forget; she was made to lay hands on others and erase those memories before she was old enough to understand what she was doing. They’re the same hands cradling her son’s tiny head against her chest as he roots sleepily and fusses against her skin. She doesn’t know his name, can only guess at his blood type or who he’s going to look like more, but she does know she’ll only use her hands to protect him.

In the first two hours of their son’s life, Akito has cried more than the baby; she isn’t because while the fear and doubt that she’ll hurt and disappoint her child are still there, it’s reshaping into the sharp resolve of a shinobi on a mission—when ‘I can’t, I won’t,’ becomes ‘I will, I must, because I was chosen to do this.’

“I want to teach him to toss kunai,” is the first thing she says to Akito, and he puts his arm over the baby protectively and says, “No, you aren’t going to let our child to play with weapons.”

 

**24\. Blotting paper:**  
Isao’s name is written with the kanji for ‘achievement;’ Nanami comes up with some story about how Isao’s full name means ‘the one who will save his people’ and doesn’t listen when Akito tells her to cut that crap out.

Akito loves writing Isao’s name on the little cards he sends all of their friends (even though he’s practicing it on scrap paper because he’s so tired he’s not sure his strokes resemble the kanji, because Isao’s name does not mean ‘sleeps longer than one to two hours at a time’). The responses are delayed but congratulatory: Yuiga sends a pressed daffodil (‘In admiration for the child that will survive your parenting,’) with his letter; Otomaru’s is scribbles on stained paper promising to visit when he’s next in Japan; Kagami’s is heartfelt though meant mainly for Nanami; Nijo and Kuga together send a long formal letter with best regards.

At night Akito sits beside Isao, snug in the small heavy wooden cradle Senri made and bashfully gave them after Isao was born, and reads him the letters; they’re promises that he’s already known and loved by the people around him.

By the time the hydrangeas return, Isao will make eye contact with him, smile, and babble; he hates the scent of the flowers and Akito gently flicks his forehead and says, “Yeah, yeah, but you better get used to ‘em.” 

 

**25\. Drawing the line:**  
“I regret everything—having children is all about doing things you hate for people who don’t appreciate you,” Senri says with fear in his eyes, gripping a vial of knotweed tincture Nanami gave him for his heart because he looked like he was about to drop dead when he told them Koharu was pregnant.

Nanami continues crushing peaches in the bottom of the pan; she’s not good with comforting words but peach jam she can do. “They can be difficult,” she says before adding, “Koharu will be a good mother.”

“Are you saying I’ll be a bad father!?”

Akito comes in, points out the window where Isao and his brother are tossing kunai at the same tree she tried to teach Akito on years ago, and says, “You can’t be a worse parent than her—what did I say about weapons, Nanami?”


End file.
